in another life
by beyourownanchor16
Summary: AU: The three lives Emma Swan could have lived. Charming Family feels


**Summary: The three lives Emma Swan could have lived.  
>AN: Hey guys! Hope you enjoy this! I plan to make this a collection of AU oneshots/ drabbles. Let me know if you would want me to continue by reviewing :)**

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><p><strong>1<strong>

She's tired and weak and crying as the doctor carries the baby, _her_ baby, away from her. She wants to hold him so badly, to look at him to her heart's content and to ask her doctor to bring her baby boy back to her. She's not so sure about giving her baby boy up any longer, because she has brought him into this world, and she wants to spend as much time with him as she possibly can.

So she does.

She calls for her doctor back and he hands her baby boy over to her. She lets the tears stream down her face as she kisses the little bundle in her arms. She knows instantly that she's too far gone, that she will keep her baby, that she will be the best mother she possibly can be for him. So, when the doctor asks her what her baby's name will be, Emma replies almost immediately, "Henry. His name is Henry Swan."

Needless to say, she doesn't go through with leaving her baby up for adoption.

Emma is with Henry when he walks his first steps towards her, when he says his first words and when he reads his first book. Her boy is smart, and witty, and when they move out of their dingy apartment six years later, she is proud of how far she has come. She enrolls herself into the police academy and graduates top of her class. By the time Henry is eight, she has an apartment to call home and a stable job to provide her son with.

They go on road trips often, because Henry loves travelling and she loves driving her bug. Henry wants to go to Maine for his tenth birthday, and they do just that.

**2**

"Only two can enter the wardrobe."

She closes her hands to her mouth as she suppresses her gasp, not wanting to give away her location in the cupboard. She watches through crack between the cupboard doors as her mother leans into her father worriedly, Snow White's hands rubbing her pregnant belly. Across from them, Gepetto and the Blue Fairy shoot sympathetic looks at the royals.

Emma waits for everyone else to leave as she leans her head on the back of the cupboard. Tears stream down her face as she sees her how tense her mother is, and closes her eyes in a vain attempt to stop the tears when she catches a glimpse of her father's distraught face.

The Evil Queen had not failed to curse the kingdom the day Emma was born, she had just been delayed. Not for the first time, Emma feels a sense of hatred for the witch who had caused nothing but pain and sadness for her mother just because of a mistake her mother had made when she was a child.

"Emma, sweetheart, you can come out now," she hears her mother's soft yet exasperated voice and she comes out immediately. Her father chuckles as she tries to smile innocently at them.

"We know you've been in there the whole time, Princess," David says and though he tries to say this as stern as possible, the pride he feels for his daughter is not at all omitted from his voice. Snow nudges him and opens her arms to her daughter, wrapping them as tightly as she can when Emma rushes into them.

"It's going to be fine, Emma."

"We are going to be separated," Emma murmurs and she feels her father's kiss on her head. "My baby brother is going to grow up without me."

"Why would you say that?"

"Because Mama will go into the wardrobe with him, of course," she wipes away her tears and looks at her parents sternly. "That will be his best chance. Daddy, we have to stay here. Mama and my baby brother will save us and break the curse when it is time."

"How do you know you baby sibling is going to be a boy, sweetheart?" her mother asks and Emma rolls her eyes.

"Don't think I don't know you're trying to distract me. I'm ten, not naïve," the princess says and smirks at her parents. "Mama was swinging the necklace the other day."

Her father chuckles and her mother rolls her eyes.

"So the plan is that Mama and Joshua – that will be his name because it means hero – will go into the wardrobe and then save us. Simple."

Except that it isn't that simple because the day that Snow White goes into labor is the day the Evil Queen storms the castle. Her mother is weak from labor and Emma has no choice but to take her baby brother in her arms and run as a fast as she can behind her father. They make it to the wardrobe and she is about to ask her father to get in when her father pushes her in.

"You're going to have to protect your brother, Princess," her father smiles sadly at her and gives her a final kiss. She feels the magic of the wardrobe, feels herself being pulled further and further away from her father. She cries as she tries to reach out for him, but the last thing she sees is him falling as the Evil Queen approaches.

She arrives in the land without magic with tears still streaming down her face, and Joshua in her arms. They are rescued by a tow truck driver who drives them to an orphanage and it is there that Emma slowly adapts to the strange land she now has to call home.

Emma tells Joshua stories of her parents and the adventures they had every night. Her baby brother is kind like their mother and brave like their father, and he hangs on to every word she says. Things change when she turns eighteen and has to leave. She promises to return, and when she sees the undoubted belief Joshua has in her, she vows to bring him with her the moment she can.

She works as hard as she can and by the time she can get custody of Joshua, she is twenty-one and so much has happened. Joshua is eleven and he sees and notices the jaded look in her eyes. She tries not to burden him with all that she has been through but when he turns thirteen and finds a sonogram in her drawer, she bursts. He holds her as she tells him about the thief she fell for who left her, about the baby she had no choice but to leave and the curse he has to break in five years.

Her brother believes her until she mentions the curse. He is thirteen now, and no longer believes in fairy tales that his older sister once made him believe. When he tells her so, her heart breaks and she puts up a front. Who can blame him for not believing? They've lived a life without magic.

Joshua turns eighteen on a Friday, and it is as they are about to blow the candle that their doorbell rings. Her brother tells her that he's got it, and when he returns with a kid in tow, she raises her eyes at both of them.

"My name's Henry," the kid says and when Joshua stands beside her to put his arm around her, she just knows who the boy in front of her is. "I'm your son."

They drive to Maine that night.

**3**

Emma is thirteen when she realizes that her father is not a normal father.

A normal father stops telling his daughter fairy tales after said daughter has reached a certain age. A normal father does not believe that Snow White is his wife. A normal father does not talk about how his daughter is a savior meant to break a curse.

When she tells him so, he looks at her with such sad eyes that she never says those words again. She lets her father go on about fairy tales, about her mother and the curse because aside from the craziness that comes out of her father's mouth about fairy tales, David is the best father in the world.

She knows that he struggles to make ends meet with the money he gets from working at the pet shop. She knows that he pretends to have eaten just so that she would eat what he has brought back. She knows that he looks at her mother's ring every night, sadly praying that he sees his wife again, but tries to hide it from her when she asks him what is wrong.

So she tries to be a good daughter and gets a job at fourteen. Her father is not pleased but when she tells him that a part time job is their best chance at not going hungry, he reluctantly agrees.

She's seventeen when Neal comes into her life and she's smitten. Her father does not approve, and when she tells him she is dating Neal anyway, they do not talk for weeks. When he has to bail her out of jail the night that Neal leaves, she crumbles and apologizes. He holds her as she cries that night, and the next morning, her father treats her as though nothing has happened. David is the best father in the world, and she tells him so.

They go on a road trip to Maine when she turns eighteen. Her father has apparently been saving for the past two years and it is enough for a road trip. He says it's a present for her graduating high school. When they come across a town called Storybrooke, she falls in love with it. David suggests staying and when she finds out that she's pregnant with Neal's baby, they do. David gets a job at the pet shop, and she gets a job at Granny's.

She doesn't miss the way the Mayor glares at her father or her, nor does she miss the way her father clenches his jaw every time they see her. She also doesn't miss the way her father blushes every time the grade school teacher named Mary Margeret comes into the diner for coffee, nor does she miss the sad longing in his eyes. When she tries to set them up, he shakes his head and says, "She's not your mother."

Well, of course Mary Margeret isn't, but that doesn't mean he cannot move on. He shakes his head fondly at her, kisses her on her cheek and tells her she will understand when the time comes.

It comes when she turns twenty-eight after her son brings home a storybook that brings a twinkle to her father's eyes and a hopeful smile to his face that she has never seen.

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><p><strong>AN: Hope it's not too bad. Review and let me know if you have any prompts! :) **


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